As being part of the game of golf, control and quality of the putt are of the utmost importance. The statistics in fact confirm that the quality of the game and its outcome depends more than 70% on this last stroke, which although the shortest in terms of distance to travel, is the most difficult and requires great precision and accurate movement (called “swing”), smoothly and regularly in line with the target (the hole).
From the document U.S. Pat. No. 6,503,152 is known an equipment which allows to be aware of certain characteristics of one's own putt, consisting of a flat plate, for example rectangular, being laid on the ground, oriented with the long sides in the direction of the hole; at a first end of said plane a recess is formed in order to receive in support the golf ball; one or more longitudinal tracks or grooves run parallel to the longer sides of the rectangular plane up at its opposite end, where, on both sides of the track or groove, between this latter and the major sides of the flat plate, are arranged a number of obstacles, consisting of balls or, better, of steel balls arranged on a series of transverse grooves or notches. In the case of a non perfect stroke, the golf ball which has been enacted by the specific putter will collide with one or more obstacles, moving them; the player should therefore realize where and in what direction the ball was deflected.
This solution, although simple and relatively inexpensive, has a number of drawbacks:
1. every time the golf ball touches a steel ball, this latter is moved, even out of the plate: it is therefore necessary to retrieve and reset it into its seat;
2. keeping the head and the eyes fixed, as is normal when performing a stroke, it is difficult if not impossible, to understand to what degree the steel ball has been bumped, touched or hit;
3. the golf ball hitting the obstacle consisting of a steel ball is slowed and/or deviated from the original direction; in fact, having the steel ball forming the obstacle a mass equal to about one-sixth of that of the golf ball, the momentum that is transferred during the impact is not negligible; this actually alters the direction and quality of the stroke by introducing an additional and unpredictable variable, which greatly limits, in fact, the usefulness of the equipment.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,732,390 describes an equipment for training the swing consisting of a sort of concave tray having in the center a strip of artificial grass for supporting the ball and on the sides two rigid metal plates which support a series of elastically deformable obstacles that are retained in position in a removable way on the plates by magnets and which are arranged on the sides with respect to the correct trajectory that should be followed by the head of the putter during the swing. Thus, if the swing is not correctly performed, the head of the putter hits one or more obstacles moving and putting them into vibration, so that the user player is aware of the error/mistake committed.
In addition to being bulky, said equipment does not overcome all the disadvantages highlighted earlier of the equipment according to U.S. Pat. No. 6,503,152.
A training equipment conceptually very similar to that of U.S. Pat. No. 4,732,390, even if more simple and efficient, is known from WO2007/035142; in this case, the obstacles placed laterally to the trajectory of the head of the putter during the swing are located in an oblique way if hit by the head of the putter, thanks to having their respective bases magnetically retained within recesses formed in the plate.
From DE202009005190 is finally known a training equipment consisting of a mat provided with a circular recess that forms an artificial hole within which the user player can sink a ball; in order to extract the ball from the artificial hole conveniently and without forcing the user player to bend over, the equipment is also provided with a rod equipped with two plates at the lower end; a first plate acts to be the support base for the rod and is in use inserted on the bottom of the artificial hole; a second plate, made of plexiglass, is supported spaced from the first plate of a quantity slightly greater than the diameter of a golf ball. When the ball is put into the hole, it stays “stuck” between the two plates and can be easily extracted from the hole by manipulating the rod. DE202009005190 is therefore related to a technical problem entirely different from that addressed by U.S. Pat. No. 6,503,152 and does not solve any of the related drawbacks.